The Thing About Three

chapter thirty-two | the loft

I KNEW I probably should have gone back to my house as soon as I pulled up to my destination.

It was tacky, heading over to see Dallas—the guy my boyfriend was worried about—the second Noah messed up. At that point, however, I didn't care. I just wanted to be comforted, and my soul sought Dallas in that moment.

It took Dallas forever to answer his door, feeling like an eternity as I stood before the red door, the frigid, December air slicing through me as I held a napkin I had found in my car up to my bleeding cheek.

I took this time to wonder what his reaction would be.

Would he be shocked? Horrified? Confused? Angry?

Well, it turned out to be a mixture of all four.

At first, he smiled at me, then his eyes drifted off to my cheek and I dropped my hand to give him a good look. His eyes widened, then narrowed, then repeated.

He didn't speak, just pulled me inside. His warm hand came up to gently touch my chin, angling my face so that he could get a better look.

It was then that I noticed he only had a pair of plaid boxers on, his muscled torso on full display and making my face feel hot.

"What happened?" He eventually asked, his brows drawn low in concern. He threw an arm around my shoulders, guiding me towards the couch. "You're freezing, Claire."

I didn't reply back to him even as he sat me down, slipping a throw blanket around my shoulders. I wasn't entirely sure how he would handle the situation.

"I'll be right back." He left for the bathroom, which gave me enough time to figure out what to say.

Do I explain the whole story, or would that drive a deeper wedge in between him and Noah? Should I exclude Noah all together and say I fell on a mailbox? Or does that fact actually sound like a lie?

Somewhere between him leaving for the bathroom and returning with a shirt covering his chest and a first aid kit in hand, I came to a decision.

Dallas knelt down in front of me, setting the supplies on the couch.

"Do you think it will scar?" I asked him, stalling.

He examined my wound again, his eyebrows furrowed in thought. "No," he told me. "It just looks like a nasty scrape—but are you gonna tell me what happened now?" He took my napkin from me to gently wipe away some of the blood. "I'm gonna need you to hurry up and give me an explanation, because the ones that my brain are putting together are really freaking me out."

I sighed, looking away from his intense stare and down at my hands, which had spots of dried blood on them. I took an alcohol wipe from the kit and started wiping them down.

"So, Noah and I got in a fight," I finally started. "I was—" my voice trailed off when I noticed every muscle in his face go slack. He drew back, dropping the bloody moist towelette he had been holding and standing up.

He squeezed his eyes tight, pinching the bridge of his nose when he said, "Please—please—tell me that he didn't do that to you, because I will lose my shit."

I flinched back at his words, shocked at his cursing. He never cursed in front of me, mainly because he knew I hated it. It made him seem different—teetering on becoming unhinged

"What? No!" I yelled out. "Well—yeah . . . kind of," I back tracked, deducing that it sort of was Noah's fault.

Dallas dropped his hand. His eyes seemed darker in the dim lighting, and paired with the scowl he sported, it made him look almost dangerous.